Vatican City, March 8 (RHC)-- Pope Francis has announced that Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero had been put on the path to sainthood. The Pope stated that Romero should be canonized or declared a saint following a theological and medical commission's approval of a miracle attributed to the late archbishop. The head of the Catholic church made the announcement at a meeting of cardinals.

Archbishop Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed, who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 during the brutal war in El Salvador. Only weeks before his assassination, Romero wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter calling on him not to provide military aid to the right-wing Salvadoran military government.

Just one day before he was murdered, in the archbishop’s final sermon, he made a direct appeal to Salvadoran soldiers to lay down their weapons. Archbishop Óscar Romero said: “In his name and in the name of our tormented people, who have suffered so much and whose laments cry out to heaven, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: Stop the repression!”

On March 24, 1980, gunmen entered the church where Archbishop Romero was giving mass and assassinated him. Now, nearly 40 years later, Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero will be made a saint